Did you hear the one about the Jesuit, the Dominican and the Carmelite?

Did you hear the one about the Jesuit, the Dominican and the Carmelite?

Research seminar series: Hospitality: identity and friendship in a post-secular age

This seminar will be lead by
Dr Nick Austin on the topic 'Did you hear the one about the Jesuit, the Dominican and the Carmelite? Moral realism and anti-realism in Iberian scholasticism.'

This paper concerns a discussion in the golden age of Iberian scholasticism concerning the nature of morality. There is a serious lacuna in Thomas Aquinas's discussion of the morality of actions, because, while he discusses the nature of moral goodness and malice, he never directly addresses the nature of morality in general. Still less does he rise to the meta-ethical issue, and systematically address the metaphysical status of morality. Later scholastics, such as John Poinsot OP (1589-1644) and an anonymous Carmelite at Salamanca, co-author of the Salmancans' massive Cursus Theologicus (written 1631-1712), attempt to make good the omission by constructing a disputation, Quid sit moralitas? What is the nature or essence of morality in general? In part in reaction to an earlier thinker, Gabriel Vasquez SJ (1549-1604), they develop an account of morality in general, and what I shall argue is a corresponding morally realist meta-ethical position.

After the seminar, we will have the opportunity to go for a drink in the Goat at High Street Kensington.

There is no need to book for this seminar, please just come along.

More research seminars in this series are listed on the
Research page.